Lesson Element
Jacob Sam-La Rose
Instructions and answers for teachers
These instructions cover the student activity section which can be found on page 3. This
Lesson Element supports OCR AS and A Level English Language and Literature (EMC).
When distributing the activity section to the students either as a printed copy or as a
Word file you will need to remove the teacher instructions section.
Introduction
Use this activity to give learners an overview of the characteristics of Sam-La Rose’s poetry
(AO1, AO3, AO4).
Using the list of quotations provided on page 3, ask learners to work in pairs to decide what
single word most accurately summarises the subject matter of each quotation. They can
either select a word from the quotation or come up with their own word. The first example
has been done for them.
1.2 Then, in small groups, ask learners to discuss the links that they can see between the
quotes. They may choose to cut them up so that they can cluster those with a similar theme
together on a new piece of paper. They may want to use the following to start the discussion:
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Music and culture
Tradition and history
Language and expression
Parents
Childhood and growing up
Gender roles and identity
Race
Passing of time
Religion/spirituality
Freedom
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1.3 As a class compare the findings. Are there any further links lerarners could make
regarding the narrative voice, lexical patterns, syntax, phonology, imagery, etc?
Magnitude Activity
Jacob Sam-La Rose says about this poem that it is an attempt to comprehend the large
numbers and was “written in response to the idea of slavery.”
In this activity ask learners to explore how Jacob Sam-La Rose explores ideas and feelings
about comprehending abstract ideas in Magnitude. They should consider his use of stylistic
techniques, as well as any other relevant contexts.
As shown in the learner resource on page 6 the poem is split into two parts. Divide the class
into two groups, one group filling out part one, the other group part two.
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© OCR 2015 - This resource may be freely copied and distributed, as long as the OCR logo and this message remain intact and OCR is acknowledged as the originator of this work.
OCR acknowledges the use of the following content: Jacob Sam-La Rose, Breaking Silence (Bloodaxe Books, 2011) Reproduced with permission of Bloodaxe Books on behalf of
the author. www.bloodaxebooks.com
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Lesson Element
Jacob Sam-La Rose
Student Activity
Quotation Activity
Quotation
Word summarising
the subject matter
“Too bright to live too long, /too costly, / my mother feared/ your
appetite, / guzzling the mains, / little sun/ I rhymed into, close as I
could stand, / imagining the bulbed head of a mic…” (Song for a
Spent 100W Bulb)
“Imagining”
“…dear received pronunciation, dear raw, unfettered/ music of my
motherland once removed, dear music/ smuggled in the oldfashioned way, beneath the folds,/ of skirts and blouses in a hard
leather suitcase,/ in the bones of flying fish and guava cheese…”
( Talk This Way)
“Our mothers said that hip-hop wasn’t music, / that all those
rappers did was talk. / Mine questioned what I heard in the hard
noise/ I listened to. For her, it wasn’t music/ if it couldn’t hold a
waltz, tango, or samba. “ (Make Some Noise)
“There are a million grains in a 20 kilogram sack of rice./ Give or
take./ It’s a hard enough number to imagine,// the kind that slips
through the fingers, like digging/ your hands in the same sack,/
trying to feel// for individuals; a number that surpasses/ counting,
bigger than the mind’s computational eye…” (Magnitude)
“The sky wants him to fix a grin on his face. / Bare his white teeth.
Why aren’t you smiling? / Why wear that dark face all day long?
Take it off. / The sun, a spotlight. Under its attention, he glowers, /
turns darker still. Becomes his own shadow.” (Turning Darker
Still)
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“…this is the year one of the guys says that music is the one
thing/ that won’t ever let him down that music is his religion// the
year we’re stopped and searched because we/ fit the description
the year jungle music passes/ out of fashion stripped down// to
naked beat and bass and we club together to dance/ alone
in the dark let the music play us
meat and bone…” (After
the Lazerdrome, McDonalds, Peckham Rye)
“He forbids her from playing guitar, / forbids her from singing,
orders her/ to fold her voice down into a small, // pocketable
silence. Hangs the guitar from a nail/ on a wall like a trophy or
stuffed animal, / like something he’s hunted and killed.”
(Speechless I)
“I’ve been promised the freedoms/ my mother never had, so
there’s// choir and tap shoes, jazz hands, pianos/ and Saturdays,
learning to sing. (Speechless II)
“…I’m the shadow/in the corner of every room, the single dark
cloud/ and everyone suggests making a smile from my frown. //
The autobiography of Malcolm X [1] dog-eared/ in my school bag/
everyone’s fingers in my hi-top fade/ and I don’t have a chip on
my shoulder…” (Speechless III)
“By the time Dante’s [1] born again/ and denounces hip-hop/ as
the devil’s music, // I find it hard to avoid/ his wide, open mouth/
and fierce, scattered glare, / almost ready to believe/ in anything
built on a fervent desire/ for salvation.” (Speechless IV).
“Before the end of this lesson, the girl that lacks/ patience to raise
her hand before speaking/ will compare herself to a broken slot
machine// in the basement of a pub, inside out/ and forgotten in
the widening fissure/ between her parents.”(Speechless V)
“…reminders that each day is a coin// from an undisclosed
fortune, that while/ I’ve never held my lover’s heart in my hands, /
never had to stem loosed and wayward blood, / / or force breath
back into place, / one day, it might come to this.” (An Undisclosed
Fortune)
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“He works it, ear accustomed to the tune/ of hard play: left, right,
launch-step, discipline like a lump// of lead in his pocket he can
melt/ into gold.” (Plummeting)
“For this spell you will need candles, feathers, /and your own
strong head for heights.// Find a place in full view of the sun.
Before dawn, / inscribe your father’s name on each candle. Light
them// while repeating your own name under your breath. / Wax
each feather’s nib; lay them on the ground// to form a pair of
wings. Your wings can be as ornate / or as simple as you wish.
Keep the largest feather in hand. // As the sun’s light strengthens,
lie back so the wings/ meet your shoulders.” (A Spell for
Forgetting a Father)
“When a jot of noodle meets the table, / escapee from the
chopsticks raised/ to your mouth, I say the spirits are hungry: //
what my aunt would say/ whenever food was dropped./ You’re
feeding the spirits, boy…” (Here, Spirits)
Notes:
Malcom X:
Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and a human rights activist who was born on
May 19, 1925 and died on February 21, 1965. Many considered him a courageous advocate
for black civil rights; others claimed he encouraged racism and violence. He is widely
thought of as one of the most influential African Americans in history.
Dante:
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), was a highly influential Italian poet of the late Middle Ages. His
‘Divine Comedy’, is widely considered the greatest work of literature in the Italian language
and a great work of world literature.
The ‘Divine Comedy’ is an epic poem by Dante Alighieri, which took him 12 years to
complete. The poem presents an imaginative vision of the afterlife and represented the
medieval world-view of the time. The poem, on the surface, describes Dante's travels
through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, but it is also an allegory for the soul's journey towards
God, drawing on medieval Christian theology and philosophy.
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Magnitude Activity
Magnitude I
Magnitude II
Voice: Although it’s in the first person
predominantly, the voice is quite impersonal
with the determiner “the” used twice when
referring to the noun “fingers” and noun
phrase “mind’s computational eye”. The
second person is used twice in the
possessive adjective “your” and “you”; the
first person “I” (am) in the verb phrase, “I’m
trying to find a way...”
Voice: First and third person pronouns used
– more narrative in approach. The story told
is of a student in a writing class trying to
make sense of a failed relationship in which
a girl with royal ancestry cannot date the
“Guyanese boy” who is “the son of a slave”.
The voice is sympathetic and explores the
student’s attempts to make sense of his
girlfriend’s reasons for rejecting him.
Form:
Form:
Lexical groups: Measurement: “million
grains” “computational”, “20 kilogram”,
“number” (x2), “counting”, “bigger”
(comparative adjective), “full, unending girth”,
“sum”, “eleven sacks”, ”long”, “equation”,
“percentage”, “amount”, “count”
Lexical groups: Measurement features
again: “counting” (x2)
Story telling: “narrative”, “draft”,
Time and memory: “weeks later”, “future”
(x2), “past”, “memory”
Food/cookery “Grain/grains”, “rice”/ “sack of Understanding: “abstract”, “concrete”,
“resolution”, “wondering”, “understand”,
rice”, “pots”, “cook”, “wastage”.
“mystery”.
Context: JSLR says that the poem was
“written in response to the idea of slavery”. It
seems to be dealing more generally with
trying to make abstract ideas concrete in
some way.
Context: JSLR says that the poem was
“written in response to the idea of slavery”. It
seems to be dealing more generally with
trying to make abstract ideas concrete in
some way.
Grammar and Syntax: The mood is
declarative from the start with a statement of
seemingly insignificant trivia. JSLR continues
to make statements about the difficulty of
comprehending the magnitude of the
numbers involved and finding analogies and
similes that he thinks will aid his
computations. Complex and abstract nouns/
noun phrases (“mind’s computational eye”,
“equation”; “appetite”) are juxtaposed with
concrete nouns like “pots” and “sacks”.
Conversational – “Give or take.” Minor
sentence. The adjective “real” is used twice,
both times in an attempt to comprehend
number.
Grammar and Syntax: More narrative in
approach with reported speech and complex
multiple-clause sentences. For example, the
final nine lines are one long complex
sentence. However, the tone is still
conversational in places with ellipsis (“late
teens”) with contracted forms “he’s”, “it’s”,
“can’t”.
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Rhyme/rhythm:
Rhyme/rhythm:
There is not regular rhyme scheme or metre
in the poem. It is regularly structured
throughout, with each stanza consisting of
just two lines.
There is not regular rhyme scheme or metre
in the poem. It is regularly structured
throughout, with each stanza consisting of
just two lines.
There are three examples of internal rhyme
in this section of the poem with “eye” in
stanza three rhyming with “sky” in stanza
four and retain in stanza six rhyming with
grain in stanza 7. Amount in stanza seven
also rhymes with count in stanza 8.
Figurative language:
Figurative language:
Simile: “Like digging your hands...”; like the
full, unending girth of sky, like death...”
Simile:
Metaphor: “Akan blood arrows back...”;
“darts of sunlight riding// the backs of
waves”; “follows the heel of another...”; “as
they furl...”; “as his eye can drink in...”.
Metaphor: mind’s computational eye...”;
“threshold”; “fleshy equation”.
Contextual Info:
Aracelis Girmay: Aracelis Girmay is an American poet and poetry professor. According to
her personal profile on the website of Hampshire college where she teaches, “...she has
recently been studying texts that... through form, language(s), diction and gesture, perform
and think about place and loss of place (or displacement), and what this sometimes has to
do with the sea.” https://www.hampshire.edu/faculty/aracelis-girmay
Akan: The Akan people are from what was called the Gold Coast region in West Africa
(today known as Ghana and the Ivory Coast). From the 15th to the 19th century the Akan
controlled gold mining and trading in the region and were extremely powerful from the 17th
century. The Akan people were heavily involved in providing slaves for the trans-Atlantic
slave trade.
Georgetown: Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is its largest city. Guyana is a
Caribbean country that is also part of South America. Guyana gained independence from the
United Kingdom in 1966 and the majority of people are of East Indian and Black ethnic
origin. Guyana has 11 recognised languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Akawaio and
Waiwai.
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Slavery: African slaves were used in Guyana from the 17th century when Dutch traders and
settlers brought them to the settlement. As in other parts of the Americas, African slaves
were transported in terrible conditions and many died on the journey.
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